


frantic-mad with evermore unrest

by skatingsplits



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Desk Sex, F/M, Fighting As Foreplay, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, the least soft affair fic, wait a second i think these guys might be bad for each other?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:06:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21819412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatingsplits/pseuds/skatingsplits
Summary: She knows he has to go, of course. And if he were the sort of man who’d change his mind because of her, she’d never have had any interest in him in the first place. But that’s far too logical a rationalization for this particular morning. It’s more comfortable to wallow in the familiar mire of anger than to work her way out of it, so she dresses herself in yesterday’s clothes like they’ve personally offended her, hands pulling too-sharply at buttons and jamming pins into her hair until her scalp aches.
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 26
Kudos: 132





	frantic-mad with evermore unrest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [knowtheway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knowtheway/gifts).



> 1\. For knowtheway because wallowing in the Masriel abyss together is a lot of fun.  
> 2\. Obligatory "this is not a healthy relationship, these are not good people" warning. Because it's really not and they're really not. And that's why we love them.

The first thing that Marisa is aware of when she wakes up is the sharp current of irritation coursing through her, pricking at her skin like a physical pain. It hadn’t been there when she’d collapsed into sleep in the early hours of the morning, her body pleasantly spent and her mind practically emptied by exhaustion. But as she sits up now, with her thoughts sharply focused and her body no longer entwined with someone else’s, it’s threatening to overtake her entirely. The second thing that Marisa is aware of is that the other half of the bed is empty. Her monkey is still half-asleep at her feet but there’s no soft white tail wrapped around him and the left side of the mattress is cold beneath her fingertips. It would take a mind far less brilliant than hers to realise that the second thing might have more than a little to do with the first, illogical as it might be. Ordinarily she’s grateful for his unwavering habit of rising with the dawn- it lets them both pretend that he hasn’t seen her in the undignified vulnerability of sleep- but not today. Not when his wardrobe is empty, all the clothes scrumpled up in battered leather suitcases and waiting in the hall like ugly hourglasses, unavoidable reminders that their time is running out. Not when all she has to look forward to for the next three months is... nothing. She has nothing to look forward to. There’ll be no respite from the endless parade of tasteless parties and mind-numbing dinners, not one single chance to stop pretending that she’s anything other than a well-kept wife and obedient scholar. Even so, there’s not a chance in heaven that she’s going to let herself look forward to his return. As foolish as this entire thing may be, even she hasn’t quite stooped to that level yet; waiting patiently by the window like the cloying heroine of a maudlin melodrama. 

She knows he has to go, of course. And if he were the sort of man who’d change his mind because of her, she’d never have had any interest in him in the first place. But that’s far too logical a  rationalization for this particular morning. It’s more comfortable to wallow in the familiar mire of anger than to work her way out of it, so she dresses herself in yesterday’s clothes like they’ve personally offended her, hands pulling too-sharply at buttons and jamming pins into her hair until her scalp aches. When she’s finished, it would be impossible for an outsider observer to tell that this was the dress she wore up travelling up to Oxford the previous day or that just six hours previously she was being ravished until she ached. She looks perfect. She looks perfect and she knows it won’t stop him leaving. 

With all the detached grandeur she can muster, Marisa makes her way to the kitchen.  Asriel hasn’t left a tangible trail but she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt where he’ll be. It isn’t as though the little Oxford house has many rooms to choose from anyway. She’d been shocked, the first time she’d slipped away to visit him here. His house in London is full to the brim of the kind of lived-in magnificence that’s only attainable through centuries of occupation by entitled aristocrats with little else to do but buy expensive paintings and shout at their gardeners; this is barely more than a cottage. But now that she’s spent more time here, it actually makes perfect sense. The massive house in Grosvenor Square isn’t really him, no more than the title or the Saville Row suits are. In here, though, she can feel the sheer  Asriel -ness pouring out of every surface. 

Marisa stops in the kitchen doorway, the monkey winding round her feet like a particularly clingy housecat.  Stelmaria is lying under the kitchen table and Marisa can sense her daemon’s desire to go to her, to be petted and cosseted and caressed. Wisely, however, he doesn’t even move. The massive kitchen table is so covered with books and papers and pencils that the dark wood underneath is barely visible, and the man who put them there is sitting scribbling away so quickly that his hand is almost a blur. Unlike her, he is still in his  pyjamas and Marisa defiantly ignores the tiny tug of something inside her that threatens to put a damper on the flames of irritation still bubbling away beneath the surface. The scene before her is far too close to domesticity for her comfort. There’s a fire burning merrily in the grate and two steaming mugs of amber tea on the table that look about as chipped and worn as she feels. Frankly, she’d rather have a brandy.

Head bent,  Asriel is still firmly fixed on his work but as  Stelmaria stirs, he looks up and a smile breaks onto his face that has Marisa halfway across the room to him before she has a chance to collect herself. He reaches for her with a lazy self-assurance that on another morning would have her in his lap and divesting him of his frightfully old-fashioned nightwear before the tea has a chance to get cold. Now, however, she stops sharply, just out of reach of his arms and the snow leopard under the table gives a tiny little growl. Marisa can practically see the gears turning in  Asriel’s mind, and an almost-imperceptible frown settles on his face as he finishes making the internal shift from academic to lover.

“You’re already dressed,” he says, his voice still scratchy with the roughness of sleep. It takes an awful lot of effort to not roll her eyes. 

“How wonderfully observant you are. I don’t know how Jordan can possibly manage without you.” The frost in her voice is far colder than the ice on the ill-kept lawn outside but it doesn’t provoke the reaction she wanted.  Asriel does roll his eyes, but it’s much more affectionate than aggravated. 

“ _Why_ are you already dressed?” His arms encircle her waist and although she does nothing to stop him, she’s taut and stiff against the would-be softness of his embrace. At the best of times, Marisa does not respond particularly well to tenderness and this is decidedly not the best of times. 

“It may have escaped your notice but it’s not quite the done thing to roam the streets of Oxford in one’s nightgown.” Blue eyes flicker and harden and the pressure on her waist gets a little tighter. Her heart thumps faster in her chest with gleeful anticipation; she woke up wanting a fight and she won’t let him leave until she gets one. If he’s going to bugger off north without her, she can damn well give him something to remember her by. 

“At the risk of this conversation developing into a labyrinth from which neither of us will ever escape, might I inquire as to why you need to be roaming the streets of Oxford at all?” 

“Oh, I’m sure you must be far too busy to keep me company, with your lovely little holiday to plan...” She’s using her special socialite voice, dripping with syrupy sweetness that only  Asriel sees through to the rotten fruit below the surface. He loathes it, she knows, but instead of a fiery reaction he merely lets her go, abruptly turning back to his work. 

“Quite right, I am.” Taking pleasure in letting her hackles rise, Marisa relishes the harsh click of her heels on the wooden floor as she snatches her handbag from the workbench but she’s well aware that it probably comes off as more petulant child than coolly disinterested woman. Examining her face in the little mirror of her powder compact, she quickly thinks through her next sortie. She could (should) simply leave and keep her dignity as intact as it ever is when she’s around  Asriel . But the needles of frustration are still prickling away incessantly and she doesn’t feel like leaving this one with an even score. She wants to win. 

Stalking back over to where her opponent is sitting, she isn’t quite sure what she intends to do. Sometimes the best results come from thinking on one’s feet and when Marisa glances down at the ink-stained sheet of paper that’s currently holding all of her lover’s attention, the answer is as good as handed to her by what must be divine intervention. The monkey jumps up onto one of the unoccupied wooden chairs to get a better look and Marisa’s face stretches into a smile so wide that her mouth begins to ache. 

“Oh dear...” She trails off softly, her hand curling into the coarse hair at the base of  Asriel’s neck. “What a pity.” 

“If you want to play games, Marisa, you ought to run back home to your husband. I haven’t got the energy to waste on you.” He doesn’t look up as he speaks, so he doesn’t see the cruel curling of her lips but  Stelmaria does. The snow leopard springs up onto all fours, a gesture that would no doubt be impressive to anyone who hadn’t spent much of the previous evening with their hands gently stroking the creature’s soft, white fur. 

“I could do that, of course. But then I wouldn’t be able to point out the nasty little mistake you’ve made, would I?” She leans forward to draw one delicately manicured finger down the page in front of him, humming contemplatively in a manner that she knows will grate on his already frayed nerves. 

“Nonsense,” he snaps, sounding cross enough for Marisa to count it as a victory. It’s a victory too that he swings around to look at her, eyes blazing, not at the page in front of him. With a sigh, she picks it up and pretends to peruse it more closely, although there’s no need. There is a mistake in his figures, she hadn’t merely been trying to rouse him into anger; a small calculation error that will most likely render the most recent modification to his  anarbic telescope completely useless. Annoying him just happens to be a wonderful side effect.  Asriel stands, his arms reaching out again (whether for her or the paper, she can’t be quite sure) but she eludes him, slipping around the table and out of his grasp.

“Marisa...” Naturally, he follows her. “Wretched woman, let me see.” 

There’s another tiny smile on his face and his tone is almost playful. It certainly isn’t the countenance of a man who’s been spurred into deliciously enjoyable anger. He seems to think this is a game but Marisa is most decidedly not playing. Calmly, daintily, she drops the piece of paper straight into the fire. 

Asriel’s response is instantaneous. With a savage noise of rage that would be more suited to a docker in the street than a peer of the realm, he’s at her side, trying his best to grab at the last remnants of the blackened paper. When it becomes obvious that all he’s going to get out of it is a couple of burnt fingertips, he turns to Marisa with an expression on his face that sends a truly delightful shiver down her spine. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to hit her and, worse, she thinks she’s going to like it. Instead, he grabs her by the hips and shoves her back against the solid wood of the dining table. It pushes uncomfortably hard against the base of her spine and she is momentarily unable to stop a tiny smile curling up the corners of her mouth.

“You insidious little viper,” he practically growls and Marisa assumes an expression of mock contrition that she knows will enrage him all the more. 

“A thousand apologies, darling, I can’t _think_ what came over me.” His hands tighten on her hips and she squirms just a little beneath them, satisfying visions of bruised flesh swimming before her eyes. 

“You need a fight so badly that you’re willing to destroy critical research to get it?” The harshness of his voice sends a dizzy flush of lust to her head but Marisa merely laughs. 

“Critical research? Hardly. A silly little boy's toy, nothing more.” She expects an immediate, angry retort, a delicious escalation of ferocity until Asriel reaches his breaking point. But it doesn’t come. He's simply… looking at her. His gaze is piercingly intense. He’s looking for something there and, whatever it is, Marisa knows that she has no intention of letting him find it. Instead of giving him the opportunity to  analyse her any further, she leans forward and kisses him. 

He responds far better than she’d thought he would. There's barely a second of hesitation before his hand is winding into her hair, pulling at it so her head tips back and he can press himself flush against her. There's a perfect dull pain in her scalp and the table is digging hard into her back and Marisa sighs. She doesn't have to look to know that  Stelmaria has the monkey pinned under her paws in much the same way. But where her daemon sways and sighs, Marisa has always been a little better at fighting back. Her hand tight on the base of his neck, her teeth sink into his bottom lip as easily as a knife cutting through air. His wounded grunt sends a frisson of pleasure shuddering through Marisa’s body, an ice-edged heat that’s thrumming through her veins where frustration is rapidly giving way to much baser instincts. And the rich, bitter tang of copper on her tongue as she pulls back summons a noise of her own, a tiny hum of satisfaction that makes  Asriel’s jaw clench. 

“Vindictive harpy,” he murmurs, their foreheads pressed so tight together that they might as well be one being. Not for the first time, Marisa is almost overcome with the knowledge that she’s found the one man in the world who says such words as a veneration, not a condemnation. Asriel’s voice is never so strangely tender as when he’s telling her how wicked she is. It’s too much, it makes her own jaw muscles twitch with an odd tension she doesn’t recognize and certainly doesn’t like, so she launches another, less measured attack. He’s hard against her thigh and with an uncharacteristic lack of finesse, Marisa slides her hand down his stomach to stroke him through the thin material of his less-than-attractive nightwear. His face shifts and contorts into semi-reluctant pleasure but otherwise he doesn’t move, simply lets her do as she will. 

“You haven’t forgotten what to do with this, have you?” She asks placidly, her face a mask of sweet demureness that doesn’t quite fit with the practiced movements of her hand.

“Marisa…” Asriel leans forward until his face is pressed into her hair, his cheek cool against her flushed one. “Shut that pretty mouth before I shut it for you.” Well, that’s a little more like it. Although she’s tempted to find out exactly what that might entail, Marisa complies, pressing herself forward to scrape her teeth along the jumping pulse in his neck. Rough, strong hands grab her by the hips rather more forcefully than necessary and Asriel hoists her onto the table like she weighs even less than Stelmaria. The creature in question is audibly purring and Marisa can feel how easily and completely her own daemon has already succumbed to the snow leopard’s attentions. For once, she doesn’t blame him.

Asriel doesn’t seem quite so worried about his precious papers now; she can hear ripping and tearing as she spreads her legs and it widens the already-wide smile on her face. His hands grab at her stockings and something tears there too, stretching a hole in the fabric that he’d made yesterday by doing precisely the same thing. Briefly, unbidden, Marisa wonders if he gets as much satisfaction from ruining the clothes that her husband buys her as she did from the petty destruction of his work, but she brushes the thought away again just as quickly. Patience has never been one of Asriel’s few virtues, that’s all. As if he’s trying to prove her unspoken rationalization right, he pulls her to the edge of the table and before she even has time to take a breath, his hand is between her legs. She’s obscenely wet, she knows; anger has always had that effect on her, both hers and other people’s. There’s an unbearably smug smirk making its way onto Asriel’s face as he touches her but Marisa merely stares back at him, unabashed.

“You’re a twisted little thing, aren’t you?” He says conversationally, as though he isn’t pushing two fingers inside her while he speaks. It’s obvious that he isn’t expecting a response and she doesn’t give him one, not even the sigh of pleasure that she has to bite the inside of her cheek to restrain.

Asriel’s self-satisfied smile doesn’t fall from his face as his hand continues to work but Marisa is very quickly finding it difficult to control her own expression. It’s annoying, frankly, how quickly he has her writhing beneath him, her hands white-knuckled as they grip onto the edge of the table. She’s just on the verge of allowing herself to succumb completely when, of course, he stops. Although she hadn’t quite realized that she’d shut them, Marisa’s eyes snap open. More than any physical frustration, knowing that he’s learnt her body well enough to be able to torture her like this is a torture in itself. She has no intention of giving him the pleasure of either a plea or an insult but can’t stop herself from glaring at him as she props herself up on her elbows and Asriel laughs, low and almost hungry.

“Something wrong, darling?” He inquires, fingers still (too slowly) moving between her thighs.

“Oh, nothing more than the usual boredom,” Marisa responds just as casually, ignoring the heaviness of her own eyelids as she stares up at him. To her disappointment, Asriel merely grins back at her. He pulls his hand away with a profane noise that mercifully masks her own tiny whimper and brings his fingers to his mouth, his eyes never flickering away from hers.

“So sweet for someone so poisonous,” he purrs and Marisa can’t even summon the energy to reprimand herself when she feels her traitorous cunt clench in response. Digging her still-shod heel into the small of his back, she raises her eyebrows imperiously.

“Really, Lord Asriel, I haven’t got all day.” Her tone of voice is more suited to tea in a Mayfair drawing room than lying with her legs spread in her lover’s little Oxford hideaway but that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. With a sardonic twist of his mouth, Asriel pushes her legs even further apart and pushes into her. There’s already a pronounced ache in her thighs from the previous evening and Marisa relishes it, lets the painful burn wash over her in waves as the heavy table rattles beneath her.

It’s overwhelming, it always is. Her own vitality is such that she sometimes forgets how _much_ Asriel is; he’s barely taller than her but it’s like he’s everywhere, surrounding her, his hands and his mouth and just him. It’s disgustingly easy to fall into it and even though the last rational portion of her brain hates herself for it, she does. Hands scrabbling at his back, Marisa rocks against him, finally allowing herself to sigh and shudder as wonderful tension coils through her body as quickly as a forest going up in flames. Asriel’s pace is fast and punishing, a far cry from the slowly intense exploration of the early hours of the morning, and she loves it. In a way that she couldn’t quite articulate if asked, it’s nothing more than a natural extension of their bitter words and flaming anger, the inevitable endpoint of every tiny quarrel they have. Having Asriel’s mouth at her neck, sending shivers to the base of her spine, fills her with the same glorious tension as hearing him tell her what a dreadful human being she is and, as little as her brain is currently capable of rational thought, Marisa prays that he’ll never stop.

His teeth pierce her skin with a sharp, glorious sting and she lets the tension in her break with an agonised cry that she can’t be sure doesn’t sound a little like his name. Unwanted tears prick at her eyes even as her cunt is still pulsing around him and she furiously blinks them away, her nails digging deep grooves into Asriel’s skin to bring her back to reality. Unsurprisingly, it’s as much his undoing as it was hers; as she feels her sharp claws break through skin, his groan is undignifiedly loud.

“Marisa…” he bites the word out like he begrudges every letter as his hips stutter in their rhythm and the unsteady breath in her chest hitches. His eyes are blazing and her own flutter shut, unable to cope any further with the intensity of his gaze. In almost every way, Marisa is perfectly able to cope with anything Asriel may throw at her, but she’s never been able to handle the way he looks at her. 

She isn’t quite sure how she finds herself curled up in his lap in a chair that was definitely not designed to take the weight of two, his hand threading through her hair with a touch just firm enough to make her body buzz with soft pleasure. Her own hand is doing much the same to the snow leopard on her knee, white fur beautifully soft beneath her fingers. They’re almost silent, only the tiniest purr from Stelmaria breaking through the heavy quiet. And it’s the snow leopard who breaks it completely, shattering through the warm pleasurable haze with calm, considered coldness.

“You know that we still have to go.” Stelmaria doesn’t speak unkindly but Marisa bristles anyway, her whole body stiffening in Asriel’s arms as the cold water of the daemon’s words washes over her.

“I’d love to know when I gave the impression that I wanted you to do otherwise,” Marisa says icily. She directed her speech to Stelmaria but it’s Asriel who squeezes her a little more tightly, his mouth brushing softly against her jaw.

“You could join me.” Asriel’s voice is so quiet that if it weren’t for the vibration against her skin, she might have been able to pretend she hadn’t heard him. Perhaps on another day, she would have. Instead, she clutches at his chest, the sharp tips of her nails pressed against his skin.

“I couldn’t. _You know_ that I couldn’t. Edward-“

“Fuck Edward,” he snarls. “Do not try to pretend to me that you’d rather stay in that disgusting old house with that disgusting old man than come north with me, Marisa, do not. It’s insulting.”

“We do not all have the luxury of doing what we would _rather_ do.” Her rapidly escalating fury matches his, and she jabs her index finger into his chest so hard that she must mark the skin. “Do not presume to lecture me, you have nothing to say that I would care to hear.”

His hand closes firm around her jaw and harshly tilts her head so that she’s looking him right in those blazing eyes, and Marisa can only hope that he can’t feel her pulse racing. Once again, he merely looks at her, searching for something with an almost hypnotic intensity that nearly, _nearly,_ persuades her to open herself up and let him find it. But then Stelmaria’s tail thumps against her leg and the reverie is broken and before she has time to let herself think twice, Marisa is on her feet, brushing off her twice-crumpled dress and slipping on her discarded shoes again.

“Have a wonderful trip, Lord Asriel.” Her voice is colder than the north itself but as she turns on her heel, picks up her handbag and stalks out of the door, Marisa can’t stop herself waiting for a plea, a request, even a command, to come back, to say a proper goodbye. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t come.

She realises, when she’s back in her characterless Mayfair drawing room, that she left her scarf in Oxford. Not one of the flimsy scraps of silk that Edward seems to think are the perfect romantic gift for one’s wife, but the warm, red merino that she’d bought for herself in western Siberia. She’d like it back but nowhere near enough to give Asriel the satisfaction of writing to him so Marisa lets it go, begrudgingly accepts the loss. And if she occasionally imagines a red scarf hidden away in a rough, makeshift tent somewhere in Svalbard, that’s nobody’s business but her own.


End file.
